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Friday, 27 May 2016

UN airbrushes mention of Australia from climate change report

Australia
scrubbed from UN climate change report after government intervention

All
mentions of Australia were removed from the final version of a Unesco
report on climate change and world heritage sites after the
Australian government objected on the grounds it could impact on
tourism

Every
reference to Australia was scrubbed from the final version of a major
UN report on climate change after the Australian government
intervened, objecting that the information could harm tourism.

Guardian
Australia can reveal the report “World Heritage and Tourism in a
Changing Climate”, which Unesco jointly published with the United
Nations environment program and the Union of Concerned Scientists on
Friday, initially had a key chapter on the Great Barrier Reef, as
well as small sections on Kakadu and the Tasmanian forests.

But
when the Australian Department of Environment saw a draft of the
report, it objected, and every mention of Australia was removed by
Unesco. Will Steffen, one of the scientific reviewers of the axed
section on the reef, said Australia’s move was reminiscent of “the
old Soviet Union”.

No
sections about any other country were removed from the report. The
removals left Australia as the only inhabited continent on the planet
with no mentions.

Explaining
the decision to object to the report, a spokesperson for the
environment department told Guardian Australia: “Recent experience
in Australia had shown that negative commentary about the status of
world heritage properties impacted on tourism.”

As
a result of climate change combined with weather phenomena, the Great
Barrier Reef is in the midst of the worst crisis in recorded history.
Unusually warm water has caused 93% of the reefs along the 2,300km
site to experience bleaching. In the northern most pristine part,
scientists think half the coral might have died.

Steffen
is an emeritus professor at the Australian National University and
head of Australia’s Climate Council. He was previously executive
director of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme, where he
worked with 50 countries on global change science.

“I’ve
spent a lot of my career working internationally,” Steffen said.
“And it’s very rare that I would see something like this
happening. Perhaps in the old Soviet Union you would see this sort of
thing happening, where governments would quash information because
they didn’t like it. But not in western democracies. I haven’t
seen it happen before.”

The
news comes less than a year after the Australian government
successfully lobbied Unesco to not list the Great Barrier Reef in its
list of “World Heritage Sites in Danger”.

The
removals occurred in early 2016, during a period when there was
significant pressure on the Australian government in relation to both
climate change and world heritage sites.

At
the time, news of the government’s science research agency CSIRO
sacking 100 climate scientists due to government budget cuts had just
emerged; parts of the Tasmanian world heritage forests were on fire
for the first time in recorded history; and a global coral bleaching
event was beginning to hit the Great Barrier Reef – another event
driven by global warming.

The
environment department spokesperson told Guardian Australia: “The
department was concerned that the framing of the report confused two
issues – the world heritage status of the sites and risks arising
from climate change and tourism.”

The
report said the case studies were chosen partly because of their
geographic representation, their importance for tourism and the
robustness of evidence around the impact of climate change on them.

A
recent study found the conditions that cause the current bleaching on
the Great Barrier Reef was made at least 175 times more likely by
climate change and, on the current trajectory, would become the
average conditions within 20 years.

Without
mentioning the Great Barrier Reef, the report notes: “Research
suggests that preserving more than 10% of the world’s corals would
require limiting warming to 1.5C or less, and protecting 50% would
mean halting warming at 1.2C (Frieler et al. 2012).”

The
full statement from the environment department said:

The
World Heritage Centre initiated contact with the Department of the
Environment in early 2016 for our views on aspects of this report.

The
department expressed concern that giving the report the title
‘Destinations at risk’ had the potential to cause considerable
confusion. In particular, the world heritage committee had only six
months earlier decided not to include the Great Barrier Reef on the
in-danger list and commended Australia for the Reef 2050 Plan.

The
department was concerned that the framing of the report confused two
issues – the world heritage status of the sites and risks arising
from climate change and tourism. It is the world heritage committee,
not its secretariat (the World Heritage Centre), which is properly
charged with examining the status of world heritage sites.

Recent
experience in Australia had shown that negative commentary about the
status of world heritage properties impacted on tourism.

The
department indicated it did not support any of Australia’s world
heritage properties being included in such a publication for the
reasons outlined above.

The
Department of the Environment conveyed these concerns through
Australia’s ambassador to UNESCO.